1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a design tab end of a beverage can, and more particularly, to a method for manufacturing a design tab end of a beverage can, in which a base color is painted on an aluminum tab coil before forming a tab, and a design is printed on the surface of the tab coil on which the base color has been painted, thereby making the color of the tab gorgeous and raising the value of the product.
2. Description of the Related Art
A beverage can is generally used with the advantages that the beverage is able to be preserved for a long period of time and it can be used easily, and the beverage can is used for containing soda water, fruit beverage, mixed beverage as well as beer. The beverage can is generally comprised of a cylindrical body made of a metallic material excluding iron, such as steel or aluminum, and an aluminum end seamed on the upper side of the body. The aluminum end is formed with a score line so that the opening of the beverage can is torn easily. Further, a tab for opening the beverage can by pushing the score line is joined on the end.
Thus, in order to drink the contents in the beverage can, the score line formed on the end has to be torn by pulling the tab. In this situation, the beverage in the can is discharged through the outlet formed by the torn score line, so a man can drink the beverage conveniently.
The present invention is related to the manufacturing method for producing a design tab end of the beverage can that can function as an ornament by applying a design on the tab joined on the end, where the design includes a logo of the beverage brand, an image, advertising words, a suggestive word about the property of the product, a variety of animation characters for the promotion of the product, a caricature of a figure, an image of a fruit in case of a fruit beverage, a logo and a mascot of a sports game, or a logo and a trademark of a company.
One of the conventional arts for giving an ornamental function to the tab has been disclosed on the U.S. Pat. No. 4,380,129 applied by Coca Cola. In the method disclosed in the same, various information is applied on the tab after forming the tab, however, according to the current manufacturing process of the can end, the productivity becomes lowered seriously if the information is applied on the tab after the tab is formed completely.
In the mean time, there has been proposed an ornamentation method using a laser etching technology. But it also has a problem of high cost caused by the laser etching process, so it is inappropriate for the mass production.
To solve the above problems, the applicant of the present invention has proposed a manufacturing method of a design tab end in the Korean Patent Application No. 2001-8020 filed on Feb. 17, 2001, in which a tab coil is painted with a base color, printed with a design and varnished, and then the tab coil is fed to a tab forming process and a conversion press process that is a stacking process, by using a pitch arrangement tool.
However, the tab end manufacturing method that a design is printed separately after the base color is painted is, in manufacturing a design tab end made of aluminum which does not need a anticorrosive process, comprised of the steps for printing a desired design after the base color is firstly painted on an exact part of the tab coil to be formed to a tab in the tab forming process, coating a varnish for preserving the printing quality, arranging the pitch of the varnished tab coil, forming the designed aluminum tab with a conversion press, and joining the designed aluminum tab on a fed shell. However, such a method has disadvantages in the productivity and cost-saving aspects, in comparison with a unified method that the base color painting process and the tab design printing process are performed in a single process.